[HN Gopher] Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point
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Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point
Author : rustoo
Score : 181 points
Date : 2025-04-02 10:13 UTC (2 days ago)
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| ungreased0675 wrote:
| This study is about the NHL, hardly applicable to other contexts.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| Next time you get too many story points assigned on a sprint,
| cross-check your manager.
| crscrosaplsauc wrote:
| Spending some time in the box for 'snowing that hot-headed
| coworker' doesn't sound so bad.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Four minutes for roughing after you punch somebody in the
| face? Sign me up!
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Four minutes for roughing
|
| I've never seen a double minor for roughing. 2 minute
| minor or 5 minute major.
|
| 4 minute double minor is typically when someone is high
| sticked and they're bleeding because of it.
|
| So yeah, give a co-worker a hand to the face and if the
| manager catches it you're sitting out of the sprint
| planning meeting for either 2 or 5 minutes depending.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> if the manager catches it you 're sitting out of the
| sprint planning meeting for either 2 or 5 minutes
| depending._
|
| Going to be a lot of sore faces when this rule comes into
| effect.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I mean those guys are allowed to fight back, too, it's
| fun to watch.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > I've never seen a double minor for roughing. 2 minute
| minor or 5 minute major
|
| I've seen a double minor for roughing when both players
| involved get the roughing minor but one player gets the
| double for instigating
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I've kinda done this at different points. Sometimes people
| need a good stern talking to out of band.
| crscrosaplsauc wrote:
| How so? The study is about leadership, decision making, and
| risk vs reward. Is there not demonstrable (and multiple levels
| of) leadership within sports teams?
|
| I'm genuinely curious if you've participated in collegiate
| above sports - or at maybe even High School level. I would be
| very surprised if someone who played or participated seriously
| in sports said they didn't take away lessons about leadership
| and decision making.
| Carrok wrote:
| I'm sure they did take away lessons. Are those lessons
| applicable to the real world is the salient question.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "Sports does not occur in the real world"
|
| That's a new one for me today.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Rule breaking is part of the game in sports. Players
| will, for example, take a penalty if it is worth it.
| Hockey has fights, basketball has fouls as a resource
| that gets expended over the course of the game.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Are you saying irl people don't break the law or go
| against other conventions when they think it's worth it?
| bee_rider wrote:
| It's just a game, so there's no real moral component and
| the stakes are much lower generally.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| I can easily make a case that professional sports at the
| highest level (NHL, NBA, PL, etc) are much higher stakes
| than most peoples' jobs at least in $ dimension
| empath75 wrote:
| Sure, but the pretense is that the game is a self
| contained reality and once the game is over, everyone has
| a life they can go on living. Tripping someone on the way
| to scoring a goal is _unfair_, and there is a defined
| penalty for it, but when the game is over, that's the end
| of the consequences for it.
|
| There are, though, lots of penalties in hockey that are
| about not hurting or maiming (or even killing) people,
| and those sorts of penalties are very much not rewarded
| or encouraged by coaches or players.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean, it just seems like a false or unrealistic
| pretense to me.
|
| For example while a hockey game is a 'game' what about a
| person making a bet on that game that now loses a bet
| because of the penalty actions? Or a team loses that
| would have won because of said penalty and does not go to
| the world championship. So yea, saying there is no
| consequences is like rejecting the premise of causality
| as the game doesn't live in a closed system.
| empath75 wrote:
| > Or a team loses that would have won because of said
| penalty and does not go to the world championship.
|
| What if they lost the bet because they missed a goal
| because they slipped on the ice? What if they missed the
| goal because they blocked it? Taking a strategic penalty
| isn't _cheating_, it's acting within the rules of the
| game. The rules are _if_ you take such an action, _then_
| the following consequence occurs.
|
| It's sort of dependent on the game and the penalty,
| though, what the norms are. In soccer, basketball, hockey
| and football, strategic fouls/penalties happen all the
| time to prevent scoring opportunities -- holding, etc.
| That's not considered cheating, it's just part of the
| game, you trade a sure goal for a penalty.
|
| There _are_ some actions that are considered cheating
| though -- think inflategate in the NFL, or stealing signs
| with cameras in baseball. Stuff that isn't generally
| caught and penalized in the game -- that's the kind of
| thing that most players won't do, even at the top level.
| Carrok wrote:
| That's certainly one way to misinterpret what I said.
| empath75 wrote:
| This whole thing is based on a serious misunderstanding on the
| role of penalties and fouls in sports. One can take a penalty
| strategically, for example to stop an almost sure goal, with
| the consequence of whatever the penalty is. That's just part of
| the game, and elite (ie: NHL) players are really smart about
| how they do it, and _should_ be rewarded for it.
|
| Then there are "dumb" penalties, and worse -- things that
| aren't penalties at all, that break "unwritten rules", and
| there's a whole bunch of them, like showboating, dirty shots,
| etc, and those won't get you the support of the team.
|
| And then there are you, know, team rules -- if you're out there
| not listening to the coach, you'll absolutely get benched.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Hard to see the negatives. Rule breakers allow you to reap the
| rewards while removing liability.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Every supervisor ever: Look my team is just an awesome team
| that achieves all goals by breaking rules. I was the fearless
| leader to lead them.
|
| Same supervisor when caught breaking rules: Rogue employee.
| Nothing to do with me. Will fire them.
| wright-goes wrote:
| Good point. Though if they change the rules after breaking
| them, will history remember?
|
| Looking at uber, any number of social media companies, etc.,
| having some good lobbyists works wonders.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| I mean... I'm a supervisor and in that position primarily because
| I have a good sense of when to bend or break rules. And, yes, the
| employees that can strategically do the same are noticed.
| userbinator wrote:
| As the old saying goes, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than
| permission."
| taeric wrote:
| A more palatable phrasing, "supervisors prefer people that engage
| with the rules with purpose." That is, choosing to break a rule
| because you are making a cost call based on what you were able to
| achieve is not, necessarily, a bad thing.
|
| The "point" where this fails, of course, is where the "cost" call
| above is such that the supervisor can't agree.
| tyleo wrote:
| You sound like a supervisor there ;)
|
| "They didn't break the rule! They engaged in the rules with
| purpose unlike those rule followers."
|
| Though I'm not advocating your approach is incorrect.
| lazide wrote:
| Someone who follows the rule even when it produces a terrible
| outcome is a painful liability. Just like someone who breaks
| the rule to do the same thing.
| genewitch wrote:
| > Someone who follows the rule even when it produces a
| terrible outcome is a painful liability.
|
| It is called malicious compliance for a reason.
| taeric wrote:
| Worse, I'm a parent! :D
| staunton wrote:
| Sometimes, the goal is to create an environment where people
| _must_ break certain rules to get anything done, which everyone
| (including supervisors) understands, but by way of imposing
| those rules responsibility and liability is transferred to
| subordinates.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| The use of private internet access for work is denied. Doing
| so, shifts all responsibility from the IT-department on the
| private citizen. The WiFi is currently out of service.
| taeric wrote:
| I think those environments are bad, most likely? Why would it
| be a goal to make it so that people break rules?
|
| Making people think about the rules? That is fine and good.
| Setting them to be broken, though? That just sounds broken.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Like anything it's a balance.
|
| On one extreme you have crap like the gig economy where
| workers have all of the responsibility and none of the
| control.
|
| On the other extreme you have perverse workplaces where
| there would otherwise be no individual responsibility for
| work if people were not taking on that responsibility by
| working outside the rules.
|
| I do think that having the system and the rules support the
| way the organization actually runs in reality is better
| than even a good implementation of systematic rule
| breaking.
| jmyeet wrote:
| So I'm fascinated with military culture and how systems work on
| this scale (ie millions of employees). And one interesting aspect
| is the E4 Mafia [1].
|
| For those that don't know, you're generally either a commissioned
| officer (with ranks from 0-1 and up) or enlisted (E-1 to E-9).
| Some branches have warrant officers too but let's ignore that.
|
| So if you join as an enlisted you start off as a private in the
| Army (it's called something else in different branches). By the
| time you finish bootcamp you're an E-2 private, possibly an E-3
| (Private First Class). If you're not an E-3 it's automatic
| promotion after ~6 months assumpting you don't have any red flags
| AFAIK.
|
| By the time you make it to E-4 (Corporal in the Army) you kinda
| know how things work BUT you're also in the last rank before
| you're in a leadership position. The next position (E-5, Sergeant
| in the Army) is a noncomissioned officer ("NCO"). Some people
| want to avoid that so they kinda hang around E-4 far longer than
| they should and they build up a body of knowledge on how to get
| things done. Or they may have been a higher rank and get busted
| down from an Article 15 (or NJP or whatever the specific branch
| calls it).
|
| Requisitions can be a huge issue in the military, evne for simple
| things like office supplies. So you may find that E-4s can
| "acquire" needed supplies from other units. NCOs, Staff NCOs and
| command tend to be aware of it but will ignore it because it
| kinda needs to happen. And those E-4s are called the "E4 Mafia".
|
| This, I believe, is the kind of "rule breaker" this post is
| referring to.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEgh-w4FIFc
| wright-goes wrote:
| In the US Army an E-4 is a specialist or a corporal. Most E-4s
| are specialists. The E-4 is the pay grade, and the specialist
| or corporal designation is the rank. A corporal is a type of
| lateral promotion from specialist and as a corporal the soldier
| is then considered a non-commissioned officer.
|
| One thing I think would've been helpful for the article to
| address are operational and or program leaders that strive to
| get things done, respect their team's time, and want to be a
| good steward of resources. These leaders may ask probing "why"
| questions trying to do what's arguably common sense.
|
| Cutting through red tape can be seen by others as rule
| breaking, but often it's just asking the questions others
| haven't and trying to do something in a new, hopefully better
| way. That means taking a risk that something could go wrong and
| that's received in different ways by people.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's one of the reasons why organizations that are run by
| lawyers or accountants almost always suck and often perform
| poorly. They tend to go back to their roots when uncertain
| and focus on chickenshit.
|
| The exceptions are usually lawyers who discovered that they
| despise lawyering.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Scavenging is the result of the low pay. In my experience,
| officers usually look the other way as they understand what it
| is, until they can't look away anymore. Many enlisted are paid
| so low, officers actually go out of their way to encourage them
| to sign-up for food stamps which many are eligible for. When
| "shrinkage" becomes a problem, they simply pause all
| requisitions for a while. Many of these items end up in "army
| surplus" stores surrounding the army base.
| inetknght wrote:
| Loading the page with javascript and cookies disabled blocks the
| page load. Is there a better source?
| pdpi wrote:
| Fundamentally, rules almost always come with compromises -- for
| the sake of making rules understandable by humans, they have to
| be relatively simple. Simple rules for complex situations will
| always forbid some amount of good behaviour, and allow some bad
| behaviour. Many of society's parasites live in the space of
| "allowable bad behaviour", but there is a lot of value to knowing
| how to exploit the "forbidden good behaviour" space.
| efavdb wrote:
| Example?
| lazide wrote:
| Not the poster, but some examples;
|
| - emotional support animals - take a penny, leave a penny -
| 'discretion' and speed limits - qualified immunity
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| For which side?
|
| Most examples boil down to common sense. Nobody is going to
| arrest a 14 year old for driving their dying parent to the
| hospital.
|
| Similarly, it is reprehensible but legal to pull up a chair
| and watch a child drown in a pool.
|
| There is a difference between law and morality, and humans
| will use the second to selectively enforce the former.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| > Similarly, it is reprehensible but legal to pull up a
| chair and watch a child drown in a pool.
|
| In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the law
| system is that crappy.
| tdeck wrote:
| I suppose it would depend a lot on the specifics of the
| situation, but there's less obligation to help others
| than I would have thought:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
| brabel wrote:
| I think you'll never find a case where someone got in
| trouble for not being a hero. I've recently found myself
| in a somewhat related situation where a guy turned
| violent in a pub... first I tried to calm him down and
| almost got hit... he then turned to other guys who were
| nearby, and one of them got punched in the face and fell
| unconscious. My family was with me and told me to stay
| the hell out of it, but I thought that would be extremely
| cowardly so I jumped at the guy to try to keep him down,
| but he was strong and I got a punch in the eye which cost
| me a week with a black eye, but could've easily turned
| out much worse for me. If I had just stayed quiet, would
| I be "negligent"?? The police told me what I did was good
| as I was trying to help someone, but I didn't have any
| obligation to do it.
|
| In the case of a child in a pool, the difference is a
| matter of degree. What if I am terrified of water myself?
| Does that justify my inaction? What if I just "froze",
| which is common in stressful situations. Does anything
| justify not doing something?
| kukkamario wrote:
| Here in Finland, there is legal obligation to help people
| in emergencies, but this does not mean that you are
| required to danger yourself or act beyond your abilities.
| So usually only thing you are actually legally required
| to do is to call for help.
| genewitch wrote:
| Are you legally required to carry a means of
| communication? If not, how can this possibly be enforced?
| It sounds like an end run to get to negligence charges.
|
| For example, how fast can I drive to get to a telephone
| if I don't carry one or otherwise cannot use it?
| rendall wrote:
| > _It sounds like an end run to get to negligence
| charges._
|
| It's not anything nefarious like that. US citizens and US
| law enforcement tend to have an adversarial relationship,
| unfortunately. Finns generally do not. That law is an
| expression of expectation for behavior in a civilized
| society, not an opportunity for prosecutorial promotion,
| as it might be in the US. One must take reasonable steps
| to save a drowning child, including calling police. In
| practice, only the most egregiously callous psychopathic
| misbehavior is punished. Honestly, who doesn't think that
| a person shouldn't be in jail who would prefer to film
| and giggle while a child was drowning? A person like that
| needs a timeout at least.
| mcny wrote:
| > Honestly, who doesn't think that a person shouldn't be
| in jail who would prefer to film and giggle while a child
| was drowning? A person like that needs a timeout at
| least.
|
| The difference is that jail in the US is not "timeout".
| Prisoners may be required to work against their will,
| which is the carve out in the fourteenth amendment which
| abolished slavery. People openly joke about sexual
| assault in prison with derogatory comments like "don't
| drop the soap". All in all, I think the bar should be
| higher to send someone to prison in the US. We already
| have too many people in prison and, in my opinion, many
| of them are wrongly in prison.
| ajb wrote:
| There's a discussion of the difference between American
| and German tort law here:
| https://supreme.findlaw.com/legal-commentary/how-germany-
| vie...
|
| The difference is that German law is more systematic and
| includes a general duty to rescue, but this doesn't
| result in excessive negligence charges, as awards are
| much smaller.
| ecb_penguin wrote:
| > Are you legally required to carry a means of
| communication? If not, how can this possibly be enforced?
|
| Obviously not... If you have no means to communicate you
| are not required to communicate. I don't know why you'd
| think otherwise.
|
| > For example, how fast can I drive to get to a telephone
| if I don't carry one or otherwise cannot use it?
|
| This would obviously depend on circumstances and how safe
| you're able to drive without causing more incidents.
|
| This is also why we have courts, and judges, and juries.
| They look at the totality of circumstances and arrive at
| judgement.
| nilamo wrote:
| > I think you'll never find a case where someone got in
| trouble for not being a hero
|
| Very much depends on country:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| > In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the
| law system is that crappy.
|
| There's video from a few years back that shows very
| American cops standing outside a burning house at night,
| knowing there was a young child still in it. A passing
| pizza delivery dude[1] rescued the 6-year old, handed her
| to cop, and ended up requiring hospitalization. In the
| online discussion, everyone called the rescuer a hero,
| but I don't recall seeing a single condemnation of the
| cops (a "first-responder") who didn't enter the burning
| house.
|
| edit: 1. the hero's name is Nick Bostic
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBlE52qKKuw
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Cops have no legal obligation in the US to protect people
| from crime. They can watch you be mugged without lifting
| a finger. They might be fired, but the victim isn't
| entitled to protection.
|
| It basically comes down to positive and negative rights.
| Someone is at fault if they harm you, but nobody is
| required to help you, even the government.
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| >[...] but the victim isn't entitled to protection.
|
| Which is the my point. If cops don't have an obligation
| to save anyone from a fire, then why would random Joe get
| into trouble for similar inaction. GP was mistaken about
| the laws in America.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Indeed, we are in agreement. they were in disbelief
| responding to my parent post.
| ecb_penguin wrote:
| If police had a legal obligation to protect people from
| crime, everyone would have recourse if the police failed
| to protect them. Bar fight? Sue the police. Domestic
| violence? Sue the police.
|
| It would literally lead to the collapse of the justice
| system.
| betenoire wrote:
| Really? You don't think there is a middle ground? Are the
| cops watching this fight or hearing about or later?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > nobody is required to help you, even the government
|
| Seems very convenient, what am I paying taxes for then?
| krapp wrote:
| You're paying taxes because your government forces you to
| under threat of violence.
| darkwater wrote:
| But there was a fire, so the risk of themselves dying was
| pretty high! There is a reason why they get extra,
| literal medals if they go above and beyond. Hell, there
| are situations in which even firefighters would not go
| easily.
| bmacho wrote:
| A burning house is not "a pool".
|
| In my country you can't watch a kid drowning in a pool*
| but you are not obligated to help anyone in a burning
| house, since that would put you in danger too. I assume
| it is the same ~everywhere in the world, including the
| US.
|
| * assume rescuing would be fairly safe, you are a good
| swimmer, you have lifeguard education, the weather is
| nice and the kid is small. AFAIK rescuing drowning people
| is _dangerous_ as they can pull you down.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| A drowning child is of fairly limited threat to an even
| halfway competent adult swimmer. Even at maximum
| panic/flailing, they just don't have the mass or strength
| to prevent you from at least treading water.
| sdwr wrote:
| I'm a good swimmer, and 50 pounds of thrashing,
| scratching and climbing feels dangerous.
| kstenerud wrote:
| It gets tricky when professions, insurance etc are
| involved.
|
| Example: After a missile attack on a Dnipro gas station
| in 2022, my wife and her team arrived to see the station
| burning and 3 people already confirmed dead, but the
| paramedics would not go inside (they actually weren't
| allowed to, due to the danger). Her team was military,
| however, so it was OK to go in and check for survivors.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is, as always, insurance. Entering an unsafe
| building in an employment context without adequate PPE
| will kill off any claims for workplace injury. The pizza
| driver however will most likely be covered by some kind
| of government scheme, because him getting injured is not
| tied to his employment.
|
| It's the same why store clerks are explicitly banned from
| intervening with thefts or fights among unruly customers.
| When they get injured because they willfully entered a
| fight, they have zero claims to make (other than trying
| to sue a piss poor drug addict, which is pointless) -
| only a security guard is insured against that.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| It is a very clear difference, if you need to bring
| yourself into danger (enter a burning house) vs just
| looking it drown in a pool.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The law is not indented as a one stop shop for
| instructions for life or how to be a good person.
|
| The law serves to stop people from damaging each other,
| not make them help each other.
|
| Most of common law is based on the premise you dont owe
| anyone anything but to be left alone.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| In France at least, and I believe in the US to, it is
| illegal to not do something if you can.
|
| It does _not_ mean that you should dive and bring him
| back. In fact, it is not recommended unless you know what
| you are doing as you may put yourself in danger and need
| rescuing yourself. But if there are other people around
| who can help and you don 't alert them, or if you have a
| working phone and don't call whatever emergency number is
| appropriate, than that's illegal.
|
| EDIT: It appears that it is _not_ illegal do do nothing
| in most of the US. The law only protects you from
| consequences of trying to help.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| It depends what you mean by _do._ In the US, if you didn
| 't notify police or call for help and just stood and
| watched while someone died, no jury would pass on
| convicting you. You're expected to behave reasonably.
| There need not be a written law. It's called common law.
| dontlikeyoueith wrote:
| > Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that
| crappy.
|
| Then you're living in a fantasy world.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Unless you are the parent, legal guardian, or someone
| with some other special legal duty to the child where
| this might be criminal neglect, yes, this is legal in,
| AFAIK, every US legal jurisdiction -- there is no general
| legal duty to render aid.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| In Germany it is different.
|
| - failure to render assistance ("unterlassene
| Hilfeleistung") up to one year in prison or a fine
|
| - Exposed to a life-threatening situation ("Aussetzung",
| SS 221 StGB) - If a person leaves someone helpless in a
| life-threatening situation, they could be sentenced to up
| to 10 years in prison
|
| Edit: Also note that murder would often give you 16 years
| in germany even though it is called live long.
| pdpi wrote:
| A classical example of legal bad behaviour is that of patent
| trolls.
| biofox wrote:
| For illegal good behaviour, see Aaron Swartz
| jajko wrote:
| and reverse for legal bad behavior is how he was treated
| by system
| dtech wrote:
| Making food in public for homeless people runs afoul of food
| safety laws
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Or, further, taking waste food to distribute to homeless is
| also against the rules. I used to work at a pizza hut
| express, we would have small personal pan pizzas in a ready
| to go area for like 15-20 min then throw them away if they
| were unsold. At the end of the day you'd have a trash can
| full of personal pan pizzas that were honestly fine to eat.
| You'd get fired for doing anything with them though.
| harrall wrote:
| Going 10mph over the speed limit on a highway, especially
| because you're a little late, isn't a big deal.
|
| Going 5mph UNDER in a neighborhood with kids playing around
| on the street is too fast.
| tossandthrow wrote:
| In law there is the concept of "rules VS. Standards" which
| seems to relate to what you explain.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| The worst of all worlds is when a blind application of the
| rules results in bad behavior.
|
| This situation seems to come up frequently, and I'm very often
| appalled at how readily otherwise normal people will "follow
| the rules" even when it's clearly and objectively bad, and
| there may even be existing pathways to seek exceptions.
| harrall wrote:
| Some types of people are "rule followers" are can't fathom
| breaking any rules.
|
| There are also "rule breakers" who can't fathom being told
| what to do.
|
| Both types of people are insufferable.
| moate wrote:
| _puts Killing in the Name on at full blast_
| akshaybhalotia wrote:
| AKA "perverse incentive"[0]
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
| sdwr wrote:
| A perverse incentive implies following the letter of the
| law, but cheating the spirit of the law.
|
| GP is just talking about inefficient rules
| neilv wrote:
| > _"Rule breaking appears to signal a team member's commitment--a
| willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done," wrote
| Wakeman, Yang, and Moore, all of whom are hockey fans._
|
| Beyond "taking one for the team", in business, I didn't see the
| article make some key distinctions:
|
| * What is the origin of the rules? (Originated in the interests
| of the organization, or came from outside, such as regulatory
| requirements.)
|
| * How much does the organization care about the rules? (Some
| rules they just need to make a paper trail show of effort, and
| worst impact is a transactional cost-of-business fine, or an
| unflattering news cycle. Other rule violations could dethrone a
| CEO, or even send them to prison.)
|
| * Would the organization actually love to get away with violating
| that rule, when the right individual comes along to execute it
| without getting caught? (Say, some very lucrative financial
| scheme that's disallowed by regulations.)
|
| * How aligned is the manager with the organization wrt the rules
| in question? (Say, the company actually really doesn't want
| people to violate this one rule, but a manager gets bonuses and
| promotions when their reports have the advantage of breaking the
| rule.)
|
| Depending on those answers, a manager's claim of "Doing what it
| takes to get the job done!" can sound very different.
| rblatz wrote:
| Anecdotally I've heard from professional athletes that steroid
| use is actually liked by coaches because it gives them better
| control over the locker room. If someone becomes an issue in the
| locker room, guess who is getting randomly selected for testing
| without a heads up warning.
| sudoshred wrote:
| Similar thinking applies in other fields as well I am sure.
| xdavidliu wrote:
| yep, the concept is more general than steroids and often goes
| by terms like "blackmail" or "leverage"
| nitwit005 wrote:
| With sports, I'd just assume they were told to break the rules.
| They aren't breaking the rules their employer set, but the rules
| of the sports league.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| You cant break rules yourself. But you sure can "scold" a rule
| breaker and then claim credit when they never break rules again.
|
| 90% of my best bosses just tanked the bad news when things went
| wrong but otherwise loved it when you do your best to work around
| the system.
| jbmsf wrote:
| If I have to make a rule, it's to prevent the worst people from
| doing the worst things. If I have an opportunity to use my
| judgement and you are neither doing the worst thing or someone I
| consider the worst person, there's bound to be wiggle room.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > "We found that when people broke the rules, teams were less
| likely to win games. Rule breaking hurts teams, despite the fact
| that people in positions of power, or coaches, might look at the
| rule breakers as people who are facilitating a better team,"
| Wakeman said. "The big caveat is that this is correlational, not
| causational."
|
| This is a really surprising piece of commentary considering the
| finding in the _immediately prior paragraph_ :
|
| > Different situations had different effects on coaches'
| assessments of penalized players. Their generally favorable views
| [were] absent during winning streaks.
|
| So the thought process here is, _first_ we observe that coaches
| like fouls when the team is losing, and don 't like them when the
| team is winning. And _then_ we say that the coaches must be
| misguided (unless there 's some kind of bias in the sample, but
| come on, look at the data) because teams committing a lot of
| fouls are doing worse than teams that aren't.
| seeknotfind wrote:
| Here's the dangerous way I put it that I only tell senior people:
| understand why rules were made and make sure the people who made
| them would be happy.
| nearting wrote:
| > Here's the dangerous way I put it that I only tell senior
| people: understand why rules were made and make sure the people
| who made them would be happy.
|
| If you aren't absolutely sure those senior people know what
| they're doing, the this is a great way to end up with
| originalism.
| achierius wrote:
| Frankly, most corporations do not last long enough for this
| to be a problem. Governments are their own issue, but without
| the political inertia and staying power of a nation-state,
| your organization will likely be long dead (or at least
| irrelevant and dying) before interpretations will drift
| _that_ far. Most of the time, for most engineers, at least
| some of the people who made these rules in the first place
| are still around -- which helps ensure that nothing drifts
| too too far.
|
| Of course there are exceptions, probably even upwards of 20%
| of the time, but we're talking generalities.
| chias wrote:
| I saw this put really, really well not too long ago:
|
| > A lot of us got the message earlier in life that we had to
| wait for other's permission or encouragement to do things, when
| in fact, all you need is the ability to understand the
| situation and deal with the consequences
| kqr wrote:
| So fun to see other variations of this. I have for a while
| said
|
| > You never need permission to do a good job.
|
| But of course, it takes the experience to understand the
| nuances of what a good job is in the domain at hand, in the
| organisation and society at hand.
| darkwater wrote:
| > You never need permission to do a good job.
|
| If you don't mind, I will steal this one.
| jalict wrote:
| Love the irony of this post.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I'm sure there's a flashy way to say it, but yours reminds
| me of this one:
|
| > Only ask for permission if you want to be told "no"
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| The one I'm familiar with is:
|
| > It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
|
| Of course this can be used to justify all sorts of terrible
| things, but I've mainly seen it as pretty innocent in work
| environments when applying common sense.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| As a manager the way I approach rules with my reports is I
| always tell them to understand the "chesterton's fence" behind
| any rule. I looks at rules like business logic in code, the
| "logic" was added there for a reason but there are often edge
| cases where that logic does not apply. I don't tell my reports
| to either break or follow any particular rule, but to
| understand why that rule is there before they decide if they
| need to either follow or break it.
|
| And from personal experience i find that when you give people
| that level of autonomy, they will almost always approach what I
| told them about rule breaking in good faith.
| pengaru wrote:
| at a former startup the vp of eng liked to say "there are rules
| then there's enforcement of the rules"
| madrox wrote:
| As a supervisor I didn't resonate with this until I remembered in
| some jobs I have communicated the company attendance policy but
| didn't enforce it unless someone was a poor performer. I trust
| adults to manage their own time until they give me a reason to
| believe otherwise.
|
| For my part, I'd rather trust people's judgment and intrinsic
| motivation than enforce the rules. Enforcement is annoying,
| tedious, and distracting to my mission. However once I decide
| their judgement can't be trusted I use rules to extrinsically
| motivate them.
| heymijo wrote:
| And while this works for you, labor and employment attorneys
| use your non-standard application of the rules as a way to win
| lawsuits when brought against the company. Another way we end
| up with annoying, tedious, and distracting compliance (U.S.
| based take here).
| madrox wrote:
| A very fair and reasonable point
| mmazing wrote:
| What has really come with experience and what has made me a great
| software engineer is knowing when rules matter, when to bend
| where to make things move more quickly.
|
| I prefer forgiveness over permission ...
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Being mission focused can help in this regard. Knowing what you
| are trying to do and why you are trying to do it can guide you
| when to break the rules. This requires you to understand the
| business/organization and how the organization works. If a rule
| was set up to protect the company from breaking the law, you do
| not break those rules (unless you work in finance). If a rule was
| set up because someone with bad judgment did something dumb in
| the past which caused a snafu, make sure you aren't being dumb.
|
| If you aren't sure if you are being dumb or not, you are probably
| dumb. If you are sure you are not dumb, you are probably dumb. If
| you think you may not be dumb, you may in fact not be dumb.
| hobs wrote:
| Every job I have worked, there's the rules, and the actual rules.
| The rules are what is written down, the actual rules is what is
| enforced.
|
| If the company wants you out or considers you low value/high
| maintenance, they use the rules. If the company likes you, they
| use the actual rules. If you are on the promotion track, they use
| the actual rules.
|
| Also, it turns out the actual rules actually have serious
| revisions as you go up the corporate ladder - things that would
| get you fired might not get your boss fired, and definitely wont
| get the CFO fired.
| hyfgfh wrote:
| Dont add Elon Musk quotes to any serious thing please
| yi_xuan wrote:
| The key is understanding the purpose of the rules, its pros and
| cons, and recognizing the impact of your behavior, both its
| benefits and harm, considering the feelings of others at the same
| time. That's essential and most challenging part - the part that
| requires wisdom.
| terramars wrote:
| "We found that when people broke the rules, teams were less
| likely to win games."
|
| This seems like a prima facie bad conclusion to their hockey
| study, considering that the Panthers won the cup while being
| effectively tied for the lead in penalty minutes, with #3 not
| being particularly close. Yes there's a weak correlation between
| penalties and losing, but considering that the absolute best
| teams usually have a high rat index, there's a big lost
| opportunity to go into the rat factor in hockey and how it
| translates to the corporate world!
| kazinator wrote:
| Supervisors might let it slide if the organization's rules (that
| they didn't make or don't necessarily agree with) are broken.
|
| Supervisors will care if their own unofficial rules are broken.
|
| If you have a supervisor, pay attention to their own personal set
| of rules more than the org rules.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Most people will gloss over the fact you broke a few rules to get
| there when the end result is good.
|
| Especially in large organizations, all rules exist for plausible
| deniability.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| As one of my friends used to joke: "rules are for other people".
|
| I live in a place that loves rules (Germany) and I come from one
| (Netherlands) that has people like I just quoted taking a more
| relaxed attitude to rules. Being pragmatic about rules and not
| placing blind trust in them is key to being able to adapt to
| changing circumstances.
|
| Germany is having a hard time adjusting to modern times. It's
| something that's being complained about a lot in the country. The
| topic of "Digitization" (capitalized, because that's a German
| grammar rule) has been a topic in elections for the last 20 years
| or so. They can't do it. There are rules that say that only paper
| signatures are valid. Never mind that this rule has been
| challenged, relaxed, etc. They stubbornly revert to doing
| everything on paper. It's infuriatingly stupid. You get this
| whole ritual of people printing paper, handing out copies, and
| insisting it's all done in person. I get plenty of docusign
| documents to sign as well these days. So I know that this
| perfectly acceptable. For official documents for the tax office
| even (via my accountant). It's fine. This rule no longer applies.
| But try explaining that to Germans.
|
| Breaking rules when they stop making sense and don't apply to
| changed circumstances is a sign of intelligence. Supervisors
| can't foresee all circumstances and they like people that can
| think for themselves that can adjust and follow the spirit of the
| rule rather than the letter of the rule.
| a_c wrote:
| Rules are like abstraction of a software library, or OKR of a
| team. It is for people to follow with good enough result. But the
| abstraction need to be constantly reviewed, by library author,
| team leader, and legislative body to be useful and relevant.
| That's when rules become outdated, library got rotten, and OKRs
| complained
| AngryData wrote:
| Of course they do, if someone below them break the rules and make
| more money, they profit. And if that same person then breaks the
| rules again but makes a mistake or loses money, they will use the
| rule breaking as an excuse to shed both inter-political and legal
| liability from themselves onto the lower employee with the excuse
| that they broke the rules.
| newsclues wrote:
| productivity (making money) is better than following rules
|
| unless your break rules that negatively impact productivity
|
| This is why businesses will break laws when fines are less than
| profits.
| smeej wrote:
| I can't work under more than three layers of management, largely
| because I've found that to be the practical maximum of managers
| who will care more about my results than whether I'm following
| the inefficient set of rules laid down when the target results
| were different.
|
| I don't think this is a _problem,_ exactly. It just means I 'm
| the kind of person who works much better in startups than mega
| corps. I can't _not_ notice all the ways poorly made rules get in
| the way of getting things done, but once we hit the fourth layer
| of management, at least one of them WILL be the kind of manager
| who has gotten ahead in their career by writing and enforcing
| rules.
|
| All that means is that the company has grown to the point that
| it's time for me to move on to the next project.
|
| (And before anybody asks, of course there are _some_ rules that
| are incredibly important. Many of them are codified as laws. Most
| of the rest would bring down the company. If I 'm not willing to
| work within _those_ rules, the _company_ is the wrong fit for me
| from the start, regardless of size.)
| taway789aaa6 wrote:
| What's with the random musky quote shoved in there...
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| David Snowden does/did a lot of talks about these, how hard rules
| break catastrophically and you need systems of constraints with
| flexible rules which have rules baked in about when and how you
| can break the rules.
|
| Worth looking up the talks they have on youtube. Just be prepared
| to hear the same few anecdotes 50 times.
| Artoooooor wrote:
| I hate when I rely on others following the rules and they screw
| me over by breaking them. We had "focus hours" at work. They
| would have been amazing if not for some special individuals that
| decide it's OK to waste my 15 minutes to save their 10. Now we
| don't have focus hours. Or we should document everything on wiki.
| But why do it when better "documentation" is "ask A". And A is on
| vacation. That's why I despise rule breakers, they almost always
| make someone's life worse. And that someone else follows the
| rules. Rules should be for everybody or nobody.
| banannaise wrote:
| When someone tries to schedule a meeting during my focus hours,
| I decline it.
|
| When someone DMs me about an issue they should post in the
| support channel, I link them to the support channel. If they
| insist, I link them to it again, and I inform my team not to
| respond to DMs from that person.
|
| Do not engage with people who think their time is more
| important than yours; if you do, insist on wasting their time
| in equal amounts.
| billy99k wrote:
| They prefer rule breakers because rigidly following the rules
| means things won't get done on time in almost all cases.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Yes and no. A more extreme example of this is the US Army's
| Mission Command Philosophy.
|
| The yes part:
|
| Leaders like velocity and don't want rules to slow people down.
| Rules exist for a reason, because somebody in the past has fucked
| it up for the rest of us. Leadership still wants goal
| accomplishment in the shortest time frame and at the cheapest
| cost, though. The US Army baked this into the cornerstone of
| their leadership approach more than 20 years. The central concept
| is for a leader to tell their people at set of goals and then
| release their people into the wild and figure it out on their
| own. This provides flexibility with minimal constraints, which is
| especially important in a rapidly changing environment of fluid
| changes where the senior leader has outdated information.
|
| Its also why corporate leadership doesn't discourage working on
| personal code projects if that value comes back to the
| organization.
|
| The no part:
|
| Leaders, at least the non-toxic ones, don't want to cannibalize
| their people. Even if rules are not important ethics certainly
| are. Good leaders don't want narcissistic assholes rotting the
| organization from the inside even if it does mean higher
| velocity. If your organization reaches a market milestone first
| but everybody has left the organization then its purely a Pyrrhic
| victory and the organization will still lose. This is why up to
| 25% of flag officers in the US military are continually under
| investigation at any time.
|
| In the corporate world this is crystal clear when you look at
| your leadership and your peers. Are they primarily interested in
| releasing a product or reaching an organizational goal or are
| they primarily interested in their place within the organization
| or the appearance of relationships.
| ike2792 wrote:
| In any large organization, there are basically two classes of
| rules: 1) stupid red tape rules that slow everyone down and 2)
| really important rules that you can never break ever. Effective
| people learn which rules fall into which group so they can break
| the red tape rules and get more stuff done.
| Zak wrote:
| This study seems to be focused on breaking rules imposed on the
| organization by external entities, not rules the organization
| created independently to support its own objectives.
|
| Supervisors aligned with an organization's goals likely often
| view such external rules with contempt. It's not surprising
| they tolerate or support rule breaking as long as they believe
| it won't be punished externally.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _study seems to be focused on breaking rules imposed on the
| organization by external entities_
|
| Those rules similarly fall into traffic tickets and murder
| charges.
| andruby wrote:
| That's a rather binary view and I disagree that rules always
| fall in either category.
|
| Knowing _why_ a rule exists and what it's trying to
| prevent/achieve is much more valuable in my opinion. Wether or
| not to follow or bend a rule depends so much on the context.
| martinsnow wrote:
| Your argument circles back to the posters point. Knowing
| which rule you can break at a specific point in time. Why are
| you being so anal about it?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I think it's a worthwhile addition to highlight there is 3)
| rules which are sometimes red tape and sometimes to be
| broken, on top of the other 2 categories. It adds on to the
| original point with the addition of how to universally
| discover what the categories are rather than prescribe them
| up front.
| throwup238 wrote:
| To add to that, #3 is often explicitly encoded into the
| red tape as an escape hatch for foreseeable exceptional
| circumstances like disaster recovery and big client
| emergencies.
| gweinberg wrote:
| I disagree. I think it's more like the rules are there for a
| reason, but most of them can be broken if there is a good
| enough reason.
| RunSet wrote:
| > While incompetence is merely a barrier to further promotion,
| "super-incompetence" is grounds for dismissal, as is "super-
| competence". In both cases, "they tend to disrupt the hierarchy."
| One specific example of a super-competent employee is a teacher
| of children with special needs: they were so effective at
| educating the children that, after a year, they exceeded all
| expectations at reading and arithmetic, but the teacher was still
| fired because they had neglected to devote enough time to bead-
| stringing and finger-painting.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle#Summary_2
| bell-cot wrote:
| > ...a teacher of children with special needs...fired...
|
| Note that that example is from (at latest) the 1960's. These
| days, at least in better-off areas, the parents of the affected
| special needs kids would likely make life hell for the School
| Board behind that firing.
|
| More generally: If your super-competence is highly beneficial
| to some folks further up the pecking order, that often takes
| precedence.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| This reminds me of the stories that Gary's economics shared with
| his time at Citigroup which corroborates some of the stories my
| dad had as an accountant in investment firms.
|
| That is, a lot of dicey stuff happens and management tends to
| only care about the results and intentionally places the
| responsibility on the traders by operating a very loose leash.
| This is combined with a % based commission which encourages rule
| breaking, given how high the rewards can be. The loose leash
| means when something bad is discovered (and this was the sort of
| thing my dad would uncover as an accountant) supervisors had this
| plausible deniability they could fall back on. This meant they
| could reap the rewards of positive returns while mitigating the
| blowback on them in the worst case outcomes.
|
| Gary specifically shared a story when he tried to quit in that he
| was threatened with an investigation to dredge up all the bad
| stuff he'd done in order to be one of the more successful
| traders, which ultimately ended up as a big nothing burger as he
| didn't break any rules to get his returns. What was telling, was
| the assumption that they _would_ find something to use a cudgel
| to keep him there, as if it was almost expected.
| mrdoops wrote:
| The important thing is to know fundamentally "why" a rule exists
| and what goal / organizational objective it's existence and
| constraints provides. Then breaking it can be productive if it
| meets the same ends. This usually puts the rule breaker at
| conflict with people in the organization who put adherence to
| process higher in priority than the actual organizational goals.
| RazorDev wrote:
| The paper raises important concerns about the social impacts of
| large language models. However, it fails to acknowledge the
| significant work being done to mitigate risks and align AI
| systems with human values. Continued research and responsible
| development practices will be critical as these technologies
| advance.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Breaking rules by subordinates frees supervisors from properly
| delegating power (implies taking responsibility for the
| delegation) or changing the rules (again taking responsibility).
| It is a quite convenient stance - something works you win - it
| fails not your fault.
| gwern wrote:
| Preprint:
| https://www.celiamoore.com/uploads/9/3/2/1/9321973/wakeman_y...
|
| A useful concept here is the 'incompleteness of contracts'
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_contracts):
| essentially, even for the simplest contract, it is impossible to
| write down an unambiguous set of rules or contract terms covering
| every possible outcome or disagreement. Contracts can only be
| starting points. This is similar to the failure of GOFAI to turn
| the world into symbolic rules: it may be possible in theory, but
| not in practice. Anytime a principle hires an agent, they have to
| leave a lot up to the agent, which is why we have principle-agent
| problems. So what does that imply for any 'rule'? Well, that it
| has to be wrong and destructive some of the time. (See also:
| "work-to-rule strike" or sabotage.) This will be especially true
| for rules imposed from the outside: if it's impossible for
| individuals or organizations given a free hand to make perfect
| rules that should always be followed, how on earth is some third
| party, like the dead hand of a regulation from a century ago,
| going to do so? So you _want_ your agents to break the rules...
| but only, of course, when it 's a good thing to break the rules.
| How do you know that? Well, if it was easy to do so cheaply, you
| probably wouldn't have the rule in the first place! So in
| practice, a lot of what happens is just this: if your agent
| breaks the rules periodically and nothing bad happens, then they
| probably were doing the right thing; and if your organization
| encourages the right amount of rulebreaking, it will slightly
| tend to do better than the ones which don't.
|
| Of course, sometimes your agents weren't doing the right wrong
| things, just the wrong wrong things, and you just normalized
| their deviance which is going to explode in someone's face
| eventually. That is of course true. But if you cherrypick just a
| few sensational cases and treat them as if that was what
| supervisors were trying to encourage, you implicitly are denying
| that the lubricant of the world is often well-chosen rule-
| breaking.
| anthomtb wrote:
| "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'"
|
| Reminds me of an incident early in my career. I was developing
| embedded software and needed an expensive, specialized signal
| analyzer. Management refused to purchase or assign one to me. I
| was stuck sharing with my lead, which was highly inconvenient for
| both of us.
|
| Well, turns out one of those analyzers was assigned to a guy
| (Dave) about to retire. I wandered over to Dave's cube the day
| after he left and sure enough, there is my much-needed analyzer.
| It is poorly locked to a table leg by a rather long cable. So I
| tilted up the table, slid the cable off the bottom of the leg,
| lugged the analyzer to my office and enjoyed an relaxing
| afternoon of debug.
|
| I got a nice talking-to from management once they realized what
| happened. And most importantly, became the new assignee of Dave's
| analyzer.
| crowcroft wrote:
| In the short term rule breaking generally leads to better
| productivity.
|
| In the long term rule breakers can just job hop .
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The relevant aphorism is 'everything is negotiable'
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